Forbes columnist Steven Salzberg and author-investigator Joe Nickell will each be awarded the 2012 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, to be presented by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry at the CFI Summit in October.

CSI’s Balles Prize Goes to Richard Wiseman for Paranormality

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) will award its 2011 Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Think­ing to psychologist Richard Wiseman for his
book Paranormality: Why We See What Isn’t There.

Wiseman holds Britain’s only Chair in the Public Understanding of Psy­chology, at the University of Hertford­shire (UK). He has written several
best-selling books, including The Luck Factor, Quirkology, 59 Seconds, and Paranormal­ity. More than two million people have taken part in his mass
participation experiments, and his YouTube channel has received more than thirty million views. He is one of the most frequently quoted psychologists in
the British media and was recently listed as one of the Inde­pendent on Sunday’s top 100 people who make Britain a better place to live. He is also a
Committee for Skep­tical Inquiry fellow and a Skeptical Inquirer consulting editor.

Paranormality is not like a good number of skeptical books looking at paranormal claims. Wiseman is not simply interested in looking at a claim, gathering
the evidence, and debunking the claim. He goes a step further. He is interested in showing us how easy it is for us to be deceived and how easily we can be
fooled and fool others. He includes do-it-yourself activities that allow you to learn some of the basics and share in the experiences for yourself.

As the book jacket says: “Richard Wise­man is clear about one thing: Para­normal phenomena don’t exist. But in the same way space travel yields technology
that transforms our everyday lives, so research into telepathy, fortune-telling, and out-of-body experiences produces remarkable insights into our brains,
behaviour and beliefs.” Exactly.

The Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking is a $1,500 award given to the author of the published work that best exemplifies healthy
skepticism, logical analysis, or empirical science. Each year, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer, selects the paper,
article, book, or other publication that has the greatest potential to create positive reader awareness of important scientific issues.

The prize will be presented to Wiseman during CSICon Nashville, October 25–28, 2012.

This prize has been established through the generosity of Robert P. Balles, an associate member of CSI, and the Robert P. Balles Endowed Memorial Fund, a
permanent endowment fund for the benefit of CSI. CSI’s established criteria for the prize include use of the most parsimonious theory to fit data or to
explain apparently preternatural phenomena.

This is the seventh year the Robert P. Balles prize has been presented. Previous winners of this award are:

2010: Steven Novella for his tre­mendous body of work, including the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, Science-Based Medicine, Neurologica, Skeptical
Inquirer column “The Science of Medicine,” and his tireless travel and lecture schedule on behalf of skepticism

2009: Michael Specter, New Yorker staff writer and former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, for his book Denialism: How Irra­tional Thinking
Hinders Scientific Pro­gress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives

2008: Leonard Mlodinow, physicist, author, and professor at Caltech, for his book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

2007: Natalie Angier, New York Times science writer and author of the book The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

2006: Ben Goldacre for his weekly column, “Bad Science,” published in the Guardian newspaper (U.K.)

2005: Shared by Andrew Skolnick, Ray Hyman, and Joe Nickell for their series of articles in the Skeptical Inquirer on “Testing ‘The Girl with X-Ray Eyes’”

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